I was first introduced to Armen Ra’s music through the radio show and podcast Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin where I heard the song “Dle Yaman”. The song is both beautiful and haunting. I immediately bought his album Plays the Theremin which is simply fantastic.

Most of the songs have sparse accompaniment leaving plenty of breathing room for the Theremin virtuoso’s dynamic emotive playing style to shine through in each piece. The exception to this rule “The Call” which is beat driven. In some cases Armen over dubs with additional Theremin parts. For example in the track “Garouna”, at the 0:53 mark, he plays another line an octave up but dancing around timing of the first line which really adds tension to the piece. The entire album is great so I recommend you give it a listen and support Armen’s indie work with a buy.

In other Armen Ra music news, he will also be appearing on an episode of CSI which will air around Halloween, and his tracks will be be on NPR’s Nationally syndicated show Hearts of Space (most stations will run it on October 16 – check local listings http://www.hos.com/#stations).

I agree that the album is simply fantastic! Saw Armen Ra perform and have been buying his album for friends ever since. It’s amazing that people with very different taste in music all love it. Really fun to order one as a gift and have it show up unannounced in a friend’s mailbox!